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Updated April 28, 2026

Teacher Jake Baskin remembers exactly where he was when he first watched the that introduced to the world, inviting kids to learn how to code. 

鈥淚 was sitting in my high school classroom in Chicago,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 got a link to that first video and thought, 鈥業鈥檓 so excited. Someone else is saying the things I’ve been saying to my students.鈥� 鈥�

A longtime educator who now leads the , he watched as the nearly-six-minute video showcased Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and a constellation of tech celebrities recalling their first experiences with a computer: creating games, drawings, quizzes and more. 鈥淚 was 13 when I first got access to a computer,鈥� says Gates, a wistful smile crossing his face. 

It didn鈥檛 hurt that he and a few others onscreen were by then among the wealthiest people on the planet.

The video soon helped spark what would become arguably the most successful education reform campaign of the past few decades.

By 2021, offered computer science, known widely as 鈥淐S.鈥� persuaded legislators in 12 states to add it to their high school graduation requirements. And every U.S. president since 2013 has made computer science a pillar of their education agenda.

Baskin liked the video so much he鈥檇 go on to spend four years at Code.org, helping the nonprofit write its first curricula and building district partnerships nationwide.

But fast-forward to 2026, and the landscape looks more fraught. So-called Silicon Valley 鈥溾�� have spent the past few years secretly building and while of software engineers. And the organization that made 鈥渓earn to code鈥� a national rallying cry must confront an existential question: In an era when generative AI tools can create functional code from plain-language prompts 鈥� and where kids are making millions 鈥渧ibe coding鈥� professional-looking apps 鈥� where exactly does a nonprofit called Code.org fit in?

New CEO Karim Meghji admitted that he and his colleagues must reframe their offerings and message without abandoning their core ideals. 鈥淥ur foundational principle is not, 鈥楳ore kids need to learn how to be software engineers,鈥欌�� he said in an interview. 鈥淲hat we’ve been promoting is that a world that is very digital, and has technical products all around us is a world where students deserve to understand how these things function, how they work.鈥�

That reframing comes at a key time for the nonprofit, whose gift-fueled funding has in recent years, from $42.8 million in 2023 to $25.2 million in 2025. It reflects both shifting philanthropic priorities and the existential questions now swirling around the field of computer science.聽

Is computer science collapsing?

The shift Meghji describes is happening not just in K-12 education, but in the higher ed landscape and in the broader job market.Student enrollment in computer science at four-year colleges last fall, the biggest single-year drop of any major discipline since at least 2020. In one year, computer science fell from the nation鈥檚 fourth-largest undergraduate major to its sixth, even as the fortunes of Silicon Valley . 

At the University of California, computer science graduates are expected to number about 350 next year, from 2025. Across the entire UC system, computer science enrollment declined last year for the first time since the early 2000s.

The job market for young coders has softened, too. A recent study by, using payroll data from millions of workers, found that by September 2025, employment for software developers aged 22 to 25 had declined nearly 20% compared to its peak in late 2022 鈥� even as employment for more experienced developers held steady or grew. The study’s authors described entry-level engineers as 鈥渃anaries in the coal mine,鈥� early casualties of AI tools that can easily replicate their work.

Other data paint a less clear picture. A by the finance analysis firm Citadel Securities found that in the long term, software developers鈥� jobs may be relatively safe because replacing them en masse with AI would require 鈥渙rders of magnitude more compute intensity鈥� than the industry has. Alex Kotran, CEO of the , noted that job postings for software engineers are actually up 11%.

鈥淪omething that I just want to shout from the rooftops, is, 鈥榃e really don’t know what is about to happen,鈥� 鈥� he said.

That uncertainty, it turns out, is what Meghji is emphasizing as Code.org shifts direction. 

Yes, AI seems miraculous and it鈥檚 improving quickly. But it also fumbles on occasion, , and generally threatening to on the world. Meghji invoked the notion of AI鈥檚 鈥�,鈥� which describes its strange, counterintuitive competence in complex processes 鈥� but that can also fumble . 

For Meghji, a veteran consultant and technologist who most recently was Code.org鈥檚 chief product officer, that jaggedness is exactly why teaching computer science matters now: 鈥淭he further we move away from how these systems work 鈥� the further we abstract away from what’s happening under the hood 鈥� the more important it is that students learn foundational CS and computational thinking concepts,鈥� he said.

When AI shows its fallibility, he suggested, educators should view it as a teachable moment.

As it rebuilds, his organization plans to keep coding at its center while weaving AI into instruction, Meghji said. It has replaced its well-known 鈥溾�� with an Hour of AI, and it鈥檚 developing an 鈥淎I Foundations鈥� course for high school students, due this fall, in which students use AI to help build and lay out interactive websites, then use a combination of their own written code and AI-generated code to improve the sites. A middle school curriculum is also planned.

鈥淲e don’t start with AI,鈥� Meghji said. 鈥淲e start with the foundation, teach the principles. Then we introduce AI coding, have students read code that AI is generating, find the issues, and hopefully have a higher ceiling 鈥� both in terms of their creative output, their agency, and what they鈥檙e producing.鈥� He estimates that where previously perhaps five out of every 100 students built something genuinely impressive, AI tools could raise that to 30 or 40.

He鈥檚 also tweaking the organization’s business model. With philanthropic funding down sharply, Meghji said, he鈥檚 exploring whether Code.org can generate earned income through curriculum offerings tied to dual-credit and career and technical education pathways, models where public funding could help students earn technical credentials. He wants its curriculum to remain free for students but is exploring state and federal funding to underwrite it.

鈥楢 fool’s errand in any field鈥�

Meghji is also eager to correct a misconception that he believes was never really Code.org’s message: the idea that learning to code was to a six-figure salary. 

鈥淥ur message was not, 鈥楬ey, come to Code.org, take computer science, and you’re going to write your ticket,鈥欌�� he said. 鈥淲e’ve always been of the mindset that every student deserves the right to learn the foundations of how technology works.鈥�

Baskin, the computer science teacher, said he wishes that distinction had been drawn more sharply from the beginning. 

鈥淚f I could go back in time, I would try to keep the movement from explicitly linking computer science to short-term career outcomes, because that’s a fool’s errand in any field,鈥� he said. 鈥淣o one knows what the jobs of the future will be like, and if they did, they’d be very, very rich. It’s about preparing students for the things we don’t know that are coming and giving them the broadest opportunity to engage in what is meaningful to them.鈥�

aiEDU鈥檚 Kotran made a similar case, arguing that computer science should sit 鈥渁longside reading and writing and math and science,鈥� not as vocational training but as the place where students practice so-called 鈥渄urable skills鈥� such as collaboration, design thinking, productive struggle and iteration. 

He worries about the consequences if schools abandon the field entirely. 鈥淚f we turn our backs to computer science, you’re going to have this deviation where kids who have access to those learning experiences are just going to be on a separate track,鈥� he said, with access to knowledge that others don鈥檛 have. That鈥檒l worsen inequality.

The strongest case an organization like Code.org can make, Kotran said, is actually a counterintuitive one: That AI, the very technology threatening to upend coding careers, might actually help recruit the next generation of computer scientists.

Despite the appealing creation myths embedded in Code.org鈥檚 famous intro video, he said most young people who study computer science must put in upwards of two years before they get to a place 鈥渨here you could build something that’s actually cool.鈥� But many students never made it that far. With AI, the time horizon shrinks: 鈥淵our first class is like, 鈥極K, let’s vibe-code something. Think of a problem you want to solve that’s relevant to you 鈥� finding the right makeup, predicting fashion trends, sports data analytics, whatever,鈥欌�� he said. 

Students build something, but to further develop it, they need to go deeper and understand the code behind the vibe. Code.org and groups like it could open that experience up to students for the first time. 鈥淚 don’t think we ever had something that powerful before,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nd if we wield it right, we can actually start to reach kids who don’t think of themselves as CS kids.鈥�

Updated: This story has been updated to reflect the most recently released funding figures for Code.org.

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